


Just What I Needed

by tackyAstragalomancy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Humanstuck, M/M, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Sollux has ocd, Tutoring, karkat accidentally says some offensive stuff cuz he thought he was just joking, whoops
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-22 16:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14313072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tackyAstragalomancy/pseuds/tackyAstragalomancy
Summary: Just your average 90s romcom highschool movie where Sollux is Karkat’s tutor but then they become friends.(spoiler alert: they also fall in love)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah while you’re reading this - just imagine it as some terrible 90s movie and you’ll probably see what I’m talking about
> 
> I already have the whole story planned out- now i just gotta write it!
> 
> and yes the title is definitely about that one Cars song
> 
> (btw this has nothing to do with Ghostwood)

 

Karkat stared down at the crinkled piece of paper in his hands as he stood outside the school library. A chilly autumn breeze dared to snatch the paper right out of his hands. It was the letter he’d recieved from the school after he signed up for a tutor, the same one he was supposed to meet in about three minutes.

He never wanted a tutor; he figured he could pass the year fine by himself. Besides what’s some tutor gonna do he can’t do himself? Well turns out he was less competent at Algebra II than he would have hoped. It was only a few months into his sophomore year and he already had a D. 

 

Fan-fucking-tastic.

 

So now he was going to have to meet up with whoever this nerdy, loser tutor person was, every week until he got his grades up. It wasn’t like he could just fail and re-take the class over the Summer. Oh no. Karkat, for some inexplicable reason, had the urge to try out for sports - any sport in fact - but in order to try out you have to have at least a C in all of your classes.

 

So here he was, still looking up at the ancient Library, dreading the horrible scent of books and decaying librarians. He took a deep breath and climbed up the steps and opened the heavy glass door into the warm building. He had to admit the inside was much more inviting than the outside. There were shelves upon shelves of books and magazines, cassettes and VHS tapes. Everything was so packed together it seemed like a labyrinthian jungle of literacy and Karkat couldn’t help but feel a little overwhelmed. He headed towards the back where he spotted a bunch of tables and chairs with antique looking green lamps.

 

He slumped into a rather uncomfortable chair and threw his backpack onto the table. He took out his notebook and textbook, flipping to random pages until he found the one he was working on. He got through the first few problems without too much trouble until he came upon the fifth question that had a full blown paragraph describing time and cars and other things Karkat wasn’t exactly interested in at the moment.

 

He had just given up and started doodling a cat in the corners of his paper when he noticed a sudden prescence right behind him.

 

“Hey that’s pretty good,” lisped a voice from above him.

 

Karkat scrambled to cover up his drawing and whipped around in surprise, finding a rather lanky looking kid towering over him. He had blue and red rubber band braces and thick glasses over his multicolored eyes. He had a few smudges of acne tucked away in the corners of his face and the shadow of a pretty gross looking mustache growing above his lips.

 

“Sorry, I kinda snuck up on you,” He offered out his hand, “My name’s Sollux. You’re Karkat Vantas right? I’m your tutor-“

 

“You want me to shake your godamn _hand_?” Karkat looked accusingly up at him, “Aren’t you that kid that freaks out if people sneeze next to you?”

 

“Uh, I-“

 

“And what’s wrih the hand shaking - what are you, the devil or something? When I shake your hand am I selling you my soul or something? Is _that_ what I have to do to pass algebra? Sell my _godamn soul_?” Karkat rambled.

 

“Pfft-“ Sollux snickered but was iterrupted by the people sitting at desks around them shooshing them. The two both whispered out polite sorry’s before looking back at each other. Sollux sat down in the chair next to him.

 

“Sorry- yeah I’m Karkat,” He kept his voice low, “How’d you know it was me?”

 

“Lucky guess,” Sollux shrugged his shoulders, “I may have also looked up your name in the yearbook from last year.”

 

“Wow,” Karkat feigned astonishment, “Whatta creep.”

 

“Anyways- what exactly do you need help with?” Sollux adjusted his glasses, suddenly regaining some of his coolness.

 

“Oh, well, it’s just when I do this problem-“

 

 

They sat at the long wooden table for nearly an hour, Karkat desperately doing calculations as Sollux pointed out his mistakes and giving pointers for what he should do instead. By the time they had finished going through his whole homework sheet it was five and most of the Library’s patrons had gone home.

 

Karkat started to pack his things into his shitty black backpack, “Hey uh thanks for, y’know, doing this. I’ve never had a tutor before.”

 

Sollux cracked a smile, “Me neither- I’ve never had a um tutoree- uh tutee?”

 

Karkat burst out laughing as he slung his backpack around his shoulder and thankfully there wasn’t anybody around to shush him. They kept talking as they exited the building, jumping down the steps into the crisp evening air. They didn’t want to end the conversation and kept standing around the front of the libaty, talking their heads off.

 

“So... which way do you take home?” Sollux finally asked after making Karkat laugh his loud contagious laugh again.

 

“I’m up near the creek,” Karkat pointed a thumb behind him.

 

“Really? I go that way too,” Sollux beamed, “Is it okay if I walk you home?”

 

“Woah man, take me to dinner first,” Karkat raised his eyebrows, mocking him.

 

“Shut up,” Sollux bumped into his shoulder as they started walking down the sidewalk. Karkat was glad he brought his winter coat that day as he dug his hands deep inside the pockets. Sollux propped up the collar on his aviator jacket and blew hot air into his hands, trying to warm them up.

 

It was dead quiet for the first few minutes which made Karkat almost jump when Sollux finally said, “And by the way, I don’t freak out when people sneeze next to me.”

 

_“What the fuck are you talking about-“_

 

“I don’t freak out, I would just rather _not_ take the risk of getting sick,” Sollux explained.

 

“ _Oh my god_ ,” Karkat cackled, “What are you, some sort of fuckin’ _germaphobe_?”

 

“ _No_!” Sollux turned red, “I just-“

 

“If I poke around your backpack am I gonna find a bunch of hand sanitizers?” Karkat teased.

 

“Shut the _fuck up,_ dude,” Sollux rolled his eyes.

 

Karkat spit in his hand and held it right next to Sollux’s face, “Do as I say, scrub, or I’ll fuckin’ slap you with my germs.”

 

“KK, that’s not funny!” Sollux looked disgusted, pushing Karkat’s arm away from him, much to the shorter teen’s amusement.

 

 

 

Sollux ended up walking Karkat right up to his lawn where Sollux held up a hand.

 

“I’ll see you later,” Sollux waved.

 

“Wait uh- when are we going to meet up again?” Karkat asked.

 

“Oh uh whenever you want. Just call me, my number’s on the contact sheet,” Sollux stuck his hands in his pockets and shifting his feet.

 

“Great- can we meet in the computer lab during lunch?” Karkat was looking up at him, adamantly.

 

“Oh hah sure, that’s kinda funny. That’s where I go for lunch anyways,” Sollux smiled awkwardly.

 

“Okay, whatever. Anyway, I’ll see you there tomorrow,” Karkat turned to walk up to his door, “Don’t be fucking late.”

 

As Sollux walked home to his apartment, he tried to count how many times he made Karkat laugh, and that may have been when he realized he had a problem.

 

 


	2. To Wish Impossible Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sollux and Karkat have a study sesh in the computer lab

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this chapter! I’ve been busy!
> 
> Aradia and Sollux’s friendship is based solely on talking about their crushes

Sollux jiggled his leg up and down in anticipation. He was sitting with Aradia in the computer lab, finishing up the last bit of code for a project that was due in like a month. He was so far ahead of the class it was crazy. Which may have been the reason not a lot of people liked to talk to him. The people on the programming team, didn’t mind him too much thankfully. Especially since he was basically the reason they won every single tournament.

 

Aradia was fiddling around on the internet, playing games and whatnot. She was probably his best friend in the whole world. There was a time where he even thought he was in love with her or something. It turned out it was that they were so godamn close they couldn’t tell the difference between friendship and romance. It only worked out for a couple of weeks before it got weird and they decided to go back to being friends. But it was like nothing had changed. They both would talk about their giant crush on the swim team captain and complain about their English teacher.

 

The room was empty and quiet except for the clicking noises Aradia made and Sollux’s tapping on the keyboard, until the metal door squeeked open and Karkat came in.

 

“There you are,” Sollux stopped tapping, sitting back in his chair, “Thought you weren’t gonna show up.”

 

“Shut up,” Karkat said, “I had to stay behind in Biology. Apparantly Ms. Snow can’t take a fucking joke.”

 

“Ain’t that the truth,” Sollux said, as Karkat took the seat to his left.

 

Aradia was watching their conversation intently and had on a sly smile directed at Sollux, “Oh is _this_ the Karkat you were talking about this morning?”

 

Sollux turned his back to Karkat making a _Do not fucking tell him what we talked about so help me got I’ll strangle you_ motion with his hands, while Karkat was distracted taking out his notebook and pens from his bag. Aradia’s grin kept getting bigger and bigger.

 

“You were talking about me?” Karkat asked, trying to dig out his calculator from the depths of the backback.

 

“Uh huh!” Aradia replied joyfully. Sollux glared at her.

 

“Well what were you-“

 

Sollux cut him off, “Hey AA, isn’t FF practicing her back stroke in the pool right now? She might need someone to watch her and make sure she doesn’t drown or anything,” Sollux said, trying to get her to leave.

 

“First off, she doesn’t need help swimming. Second, I was about to leave anyways to give you two a little privacy,” Aradia said, waggling her eyebrows and grabbing her shoulder bag. As the door closed on her, Karkat jerked a thumb in her direction.

 

“What was _that_ all about?” Karkat eyed him suspiciously.

 

“Nothing, nothing,” Sollux assured him, “She was just messing with you.”

 

“Huh,” Karkat stared at the door.

 

“Anyways,” Sollux tried to refocus Karkat’s attention to the half done Algebra homework in front of him, “There are about a million errors on this thing that I don’t even know where to start-“

 

 

 

They worked together trying to pick out exactly where Karkat went wrong, leaving him to become frustrated and confused, holding his head in his hand, trying to understand a word Sollux was saying.

 

“Okay so in this problem it’s asking how many people will be in a population that doubles in size every sixty years so you have to use this exponential growth formula and then you’d get-?” Sollux looked to Karkat for him to answer.

 

“Uhh...” Karkat was scribbling in his notebook, erasing and re-writing.

 

Sollux peered over the smudges on his paper, trying to decipher what he’d written, “Well... that’s _close_...”

 

“ _God fucking_ \- I’m never gonna pass this stupid _fucking_ class,” Karkat slammed his pencil onto the table, breaking the lead.

 

“Oh come on,” Sollux reassured him, “You’re not _that_ bad. You just need work with focusing and not making tiny mistakes.”

 

“Yeah, what an _easy_ thing to fix!” Karkat rested his head on the desk, rolling the pencil around.

 

“You just need more practice and no distractions or anything,” Sollux explained, “Do you do your homework with the TV on or something?”

 

“... It helps me work,” Karkat mumbled.

 

“Yeah that’s the first thing that’s gotta go,” Sollux grinned.

 

“Can you just...” Karkat looked up at the ceiling, “Can you like, come to my house and force me to do homework? It’d help having you there to make sure I’m paying attention.”

 

Sollux blinked, “Oh... yeah sure, uhh when exactly?”

 

“You could just walk home with me after school and help for an hour,” Karkat said, “ _Please_? It’d help a lot I swear.”

 

“I mean-“ Sollux had something caught in his throat, “If you think it would help then-“

 

“Thank you _so_ much, dude” Karkat grinned, leaning into him, “You’re the _fucking_ best.”

 

“Heh, yeah,” Sollux sat, uncomfortable, “Sooo... why do you need to pass this class so badly anyway? Couldn’t you just retake it over the summer if you’re that bad?”

 

“Well I could but, if I wanna make the tryouts for sports I have to pass all my classes,” Karkat explained.

 

“... _Sports_?” Sollux asked.

 

“Well, I’m trying out for baseball, football, track, and basketball... so yeah... _sports_ ,” Karkat rested his chin on his hand.

 

“Jesus that’s a little much don’t you think?” Sollux raised his eyebrow.

 

“Well I figure I’m not going to get onto _all_ the teams so I’d better try to get on at least _one_ of em’ if I try out for all of them,” Karkat rolled the pencil along the desk.

 

“Jesus, well you’re sure as hell not getting onto the basketball team, that’s for sure,” Sollux snickered.

 

“Oh? And _why_ the hell not?” Karkat became defensive in an instant.

 

“Have you looked in a mirror lately? You’re stocky and short,” Sollux pointed out, “There’s _no_ way.”

 

“ _You son of a bitch_ ,” Karkat had a fire in his eyes, “You take that back or I’ll slit your throat when you’re sleeping.”

 

“You don’t even know where I live, dork,” Sollux sat back in his seat.

 

“Well I assume it’s near where I live because otherwise I’d feel pretty bad for making you walk home with me now,” Karkat said.

 

“Sadly, yes,” Sollux said, “I want you to know that I feel incredibly unsafe living in the same neighborhood as you.”

 

“You’re welcome,” Karkat smirked.

 

Sollux rolled his eyes just as the lunch bell rang. He felt a pang of disappointment as he knew they had to go to their seperate classes, but also excited, realizing they’d get to spend an hour everyday hanging out at Karkat’s house. Even if it was just studying to Karkat, it was so much more to Sollux.

 

Karkat was already packing up his things, “I’ll see you later? Outside the Library, okay?”

 

“Yeah sure,” Sollux watched him leave the room, waving a hand as he left.

 

_God. He was in this way too deep._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know when I’ve gone too crazy with italics

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah - Sollux has obsessive compulsive disorder and it’s gonna be talked a LOT more in later chapters


End file.
